


Master Words

by Katherine



Category: The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 11:31:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4562985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>So there they were, both at the bottom of a pit-trap, not so very deep but deep enough.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Master Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luzula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/gifts).



> "It was after the letting in of the Jungle that the pleasantest part of Mowgli's life began. He had the good conscience that comes from paying debts; all the Jungle was his friend, and just a little afraid of him. The things that he did and saw and heard when he was wandering from one people to another, with or without his four companions, would make many stories, each as long as this one. So you will never be told how [...] he saved Hathi the Silent from being once more trapped in a pit with a stake at the bottom"  
> — "Red Dog", _The Second Jungle Book_

Had Mowgli been about with another of his friends in the Jungle that evening, he might have avoided the whole matter. Baloo is not a one who took long rambles for the pleasure of them. Bagheera knew too well all kinds of traps that Man made. And any of the wolves would most likely have scented the disturbance from Man's hands, let them be hours old or days.

Yet Mowgli was making his own way that day, perhaps nearer than was very prudent to one of the paths where Men tended to go. He was walking very near to Hathi the Wild Elephant, but Mowgli was making small sounds under his breath instead of proper conversation with him. He was working over in his mind how he would approach Hathi for a story, and if this day was the very best day to try that.

So it came to be that the earth and the leaves laid on it shifted too suddenly to move back from, and Hathi's bulk slid down too, with Mowgli, although Mowgli grabbed for a creeper; yet it was too small and broke between his fingers.

So there they were, both at the bottom of a pit-trap, not so very deep but deep enough, and the sharpened stake set in it seemed to gleam threateningly in the dim light. Neither of them had been scored by it as they fell down. But Mowgli knew from Baloo and Bagheera's teachings that a sharpened stake is a frightful thing, and it does not take a terrible scrape for someone of the Jungle to meet a terrible end.

* * *

For a time Mowgli worked at the hard-packed earth surrounding the stake with his hands, but he left off this when Hathi shifted himself from foot to foot. There are very few indeed of the folk of the Jungle who can keep all their sense when caught in a trap.

So Mowgli moved back form the stake to a slightly higher place, the floor of the pit being not so very even. He stretched up on his toes and called out the master words of the bird people: "We be of one blood, ye and I". And he waited for a bird to answer and to bring itself near enough to speak with.

At last a bird came down; not Chil the Kite this time, who had marked Mowgli's trail when he was carried away by the _Bandar-log_ , but a small grey bird who was only distant kin. Mowgli would have liked to speak with Chil, who knew him of old and had flown with word for him before. Yet perhaps it was just as useful a thing it was this one, for Hathi might have been driven to struggle if the carrion-eater that is a kite had flown too closely over him.

While waiting for a bird to answer Mowgli had thought over how to make his message short without losing important sense. It is to be kept well in mind in the Jungle that it is a very rare bird who likes being a messenger.

"I, Mowgli, say to you: tell the children of Hathi to send their strongest and steadiest to this place," Mowgli said, repeating the master words with the Kite's screech at the end. Out of the corner of one eye he saw Hathi folding in his ears at the sound.

As the bird flew away, Mowgli settled himself to wait a lengthy time, for Hathi's children were at a far grazing-ground. He remembered calling to Chil as the _Bandar-log_ pulled him along. The swooping movement of that invisible road the monkey people make at the tops of the trees. That was very little like this forced-to-patience waiting.

Hathi was nearly silent, only the dragging sound of his breathing, and now and again the dirt shifting under his wide feet as, small eyes rolling to show the whites, he tried to back a little further from the threatening sharpened stick.

* * *

When the darkness of the Jungle night fell, Mowgli did not presume to directly offer comfort, but he shifted closer to Hathi, tucking his arms around his own drawn-up legs as if he were cold and would like to be against the elephant's side to gain warmth.

Mowgli drifted in his thoughts, patient, yet was aware Hathi did not sleep. At length Mowgli asked for Hathi to relate a tale. "When, at the time of the Water Truce, you told how Fear came," Mowgli explained, "Baloo said then that the Jungle is full of such stories. I would like to hear another of them from you."

Hathi rumbled at the flattery, but set to telling Mowgli the history of one of the Cold Lairs, overtaken by trees; by low creepers; and by the bitter _Karela_ twining over. That had been a slow creeping, not the letting in the Jungle Mowgli had caused to the village where he had lived for a little time. Mowgli thought the story Hathi told him now might have been brought to mind by Hathi's encounter with a pit before, there.

 

Near morning, when they had been quiet again for a time, a sound came like a rope dragged over shifting ground. Mowgli threw up his head towards the sky and hissed. Hathi curled his trunk, for it was he himself who had taken Mowgli down to learn those Master Words from a water-snake, years before.

"I know we are, Little Brother," came words in answer in a familiar voice. "It is Kaa, come to see what Mang the Bat was squeaking about this night."

As the dappled sunlight strengthened, Mowgli see Kaa as more than a shadow-grey shape. The python had draped himself very near the edge of the pit. He was, perhaps, a little less splendid in his brown and yellow colours than he had been that night of the _Bandar-log_ years before; for he had not this time so freshly shed his skin. But he had put on length.

"Stay a while, Kaa," Mowgli said, "and it might be you could help this manling once more."

* * *

Hathi was of course the first to hear the ever-so-low rumbles of his children, long before Mowgli or Kaa could sense the call. Hathi rumbled, apparently to himself, that he was certain he could make out so and so's voice, and that might be the step of such a one.

Mowgli set to working again at the stake, carefully drawing it free. Then he had its sharpened end to dig at the walls with, lessening the space he and Hathi shared at the bottom of the pit, but gradually moving and packing the earth on one side to something like a slope.

"Hathi's children I will tell to hold on with their trunks and pull," Mowgli explained quietly to Kaa. "Will you also pull, for my sake?"

Kaa thoughtfully coiled and uncoiled himself, for his hug is a fearful thing that breaks bones and for all but a very, very few cannot be escaped from. But it could be done for him to could gentle his hold near the front of him, and anchor himself with his tail.

* * *

"Thus was Hathi rescued," Mowgli began to tell Bagheera, some time later and having washed himself of the dirt and effort. He was leaving damp handprints on Bagheera's inky side, and Bagheera bore the indignity for love of him.

"We pulled Hathi, I to call the beat and Kaa to pull, Kaa and Hathi's children, six of them."

"What is this?" Bagheera interrupted. "Are the elephants seasons, that you stack one upon another?" For the peoples of the jungle do not count themselves, or objects, and indeed have no concept of counting except that they reckon up seasons that have passed.

"Counting is a thing that Men do," Mowgli said indifferently. "I find it useful, now and again. Now Bagheera, keep your manners and I will tell you."

So Bagheera did not interrupt a second time, as he listened to the one whose life he had bought for a bull, who now was grown to be a master of the Jungle.


End file.
